At the supreme moment of his dying Jesus so identified himself with men and the depths of their predicament and agony that no man can now sink so low that God has not gone lower.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that Jesus empathizes with human suffering and experiences, showcasing the depth of divine compassion.
This quote by Os Guinness reflects on the profound connection between Jesus and humanity, particularly at the moment of His death. It conveys the idea that Jesus experienced the fullest extent of human suffering and despair, suggesting that no individual can reach a depth of anguish that is beyond God's understanding or presence. Thus, it reinforces the notion of divine empathy and the belief that God's grace is accessible to all, regardless of how low they may feel.
In practice
This quote can be used in a sermon to illustrate God's love and understanding of human suffering.
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes.
In other words, we are never freer than when we become most ourselves, most human, most just, most excellent, and the like.
We betray our modern arrogance and forget the place of mystery in God's dealing with us.
The question the doubter does not ask is whether faith was really useless or simply not used. What would you think of a boy who gave up learning to ride a bicycle, complaining that he hurt himself because his bicycle stopped moving so he had no choice but to fall off? If he wanted to sit comfortably while remaining stationary, he should not have chosen a bicycle but a chair. Similarly faith must be put to use, or it will become useless.
Either we conform our desires to the truth or we conform the truth to our desires.
While doing centering prayer, the practice is to let go of any thought or perception. The priority is to be as silent as possible and when that is not possible to let the noise of the thoughts be the sacred symbol for a while, without analyzing them.
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.
Tis not where we lie but whence we fell; the loss of Heaven's the greatest pain in Hell.
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